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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28085817">A Face I Know</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoseidonChildOfSong/pseuds/PoseidonChildOfSong'>PoseidonChildOfSong</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Beards (Facial Hair), Canon-Typical Violence, How Do I Tag, M/M, Minor Character Death, One Shot, Shaving, brief mentions of violence, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:23:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,803</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28085817</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoseidonChildOfSong/pseuds/PoseidonChildOfSong</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Every boy in the dorms got at least a little excited when they first started growing out their facial hair. It was another mark of getting older, growing up, surviving. Most of them wouldn’t make it past peach fuzz and the scruffy beginnings of a real beard but, it was the little things when one was training to be a witcher of the Wolf school. </p><p>My first fic in a *very* long time. But Rawr and another Tumblr user inspired me greatly, and this just sort of happened, so I'm gifting it to them in return for all the many wonderful feels that they have given me this year.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Face I Know</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleatory_fox/gifts">aleatory_fox</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Every boy in the dorms got at least a little excited when they first started growing out their facial hair. It was another mark of getting older, growing up, surviving. Most of them wouldn’t make it past peach fuzz and the scruffy beginnings of a real beard but, it was the little things when one was training to be a witcher of the Wolf school.</p><p>Lambert couldn’t have cared less, or at least he claimed not to, because at 17 years of age and about to take the Trial of the Medallion he was still as smooth and chubby cheeked as most of the twelve year olds. It didn’t bother him to be honest, the Ladies like a clean face right? That’s what Clovis said when he came back for the winter clean shaven when he’d left with a full, bushy beard just that spring. And even then, his face hadn’t really fit him since his eyes turned almost celandine yellow after the grasses.</p><p>It’s just that, all the other boys in his cohort liked to think that it made him inferior somehow (like there weren’t a hundred and one other things they had the chance to pick on, but he’d show them oooh he’d show them). Well everyone but Voltehre anyway, he was always there to back Lambert up when the going got tough and he punched someone’s lights out just to shut them up.</p><p>Voltehre tried to be there to back Lambert up in that damned cave too, cause he had a too big heart some days, something Lambert had cursed him for many a time. He couldn’t leave the others to face Speartip alone, and it had been the death of him. It had been the death of another little bit of Lambert too.</p><p>Lambert’s facial hair started coming in less than a week later, and he grew it out to the same twirly little mustache that Voltehre had always wanted without even thinking about it.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>When he came back for his second winter at Kaer Morhen he found a ruin where the mighty keep had once stood. He’d heard the rumors of the sacking while walking the Path, and had all but dismissed them save for that little voice in the back of his head that told him to turn north, go… not home, he didn’t want to think of it as home but it was still the closest thing he had to one anymore.</p><p>Lambert could smell the death and decay from miles out, burning his nose and churning his stomach the closer he got. Smoke still rose in curling wisps from the North tower, and the moat, and the South field. He nearly drew his silver sword on poor Berengar whom he mistook for a wraith at the gate, listing side to side as he was while watching the bodies burning in the moat. Bodies… so many bodies, most of them too little to be grown witchers.</p><p>He looked away, kept walking until he made it to the main hall, where Remus and Eskel were sitting at the only remaining table in the vast hall. All the others had been smashed to bits by the looks of the place. They both looked hale and healthy, aside from the matching despondent, ashen expressions on their scared faces. They’d been on the path, same as him then, and avoided the mass mob that had come to end their brothers.</p><p>They must have heard him wander in, because they both looked up at him at the same time, stiff but alert, ready to spring at whatever dared to disturb their quiet moment of grief. Eskel gave him a weak attempt at a smile and a wave, but Remus, Remus was staring at him in utter disbelief, like he was actually seeing a ghost. His amber eyes were wide with shock, and yet, the barest hint of a smile tugged at his face.</p><p>“Frank…?” Lambert had never heard the older witcher’s voice sound so…. Soft, or broken. Remus was a small mountain of a man with the rough and gruff temperament and unmovable will to match. But everyone in Kaer Morhen old enough to understand what adults actually did behind closed doors knew that there was only one person on the while continent he ever softened up for.</p><p>“Frank is that you?” Remus slowly rose to his feet, trembling like a newborn fawn at the sight of Lambert. And then it clicked.</p><p>Lambert had shaved off his mustache to reset his nose a week ago after he got it smashed into a table in a bar fight, but he kept the bushy beard he’d been growing out all summer, between that and his dark hair, and the fact he was pretty sure his gambeson had been Frank’s at one point… Yeah, he wasn’t about to blame Remus for mistaking him for his lover.</p><p>It didn’t mean he was okay with being looked at like he hung the stars next to the moon. Eskel was quick though, and reached up to put a gentle hand on Remus’s arm, drawing him back down with a sad shake of his head. Remus looked ready to protest but when he looked back up at Lambert the spell of grief had been broken, and he was who was actually standing in the hall. Lambert also didn’t blame him for the vicious snarl that realization earned him.</p><p>He wouldn’t want to see his ugly mug either if he was hoping for a lover instead.</p><p>Vesemir at least seemed happy to see him back. One more pup accounted for, one less dead body to worry about. The old man looked harrowed enough surrounded by all this death. He spent his first night back with a bowl of water and shattered corner of a mirror, shaving all of his beard off. He’d rather be baby faced “Little Lamb” than be mistaken for anyone else among the Dead that winter.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>He tried growing out mutton chops once, and only once. It started as one of Geralt’s dumb winter wagers over a game of gwent. <em>You win and I'll shave my whole head, every bit of it. I win, and you grow out some proper mutton chops to hide those baby cheeks</em>. Why he picked mutton chops Lambert never wanted to know, but he lost and a bet was a bet, so he grew them out over the spring and summer, intending to show them off when he returned in the winter.</p><p>Lambert was just starting to kinda like them actually, and then the nekker got him. Fuck nekkers in his opinion, damn critters couldn’t finish the job with his garbage old man, so he had a bit of a vendetta agaisnt them for his lot in life. That grudge only got worse when one almost took out his right eye. He should have seen it coming really, all the others from it’s nest were dead, and he was just about to blow the whole thing sky high when the last little shit had jumped him, sinking little claws into his face and tearing down.</p><p>Those claws then got tangled in the beard, and tore a sizable chunk of that out too. Lambert smashed it into a nearby tree before decapitating it in one swift stroke. He got a bit lucky there, half blind as he was with blood pouring out of the head wounds. Swallow and a dab of White Raffards took care of the worst of that, and ensured him a handful of new scars with a decent story, but it didn’t help the sorry state of his beard. There was nothing for it but to shave it off and start over again.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>Years down the line, Lambert would come into the company and then bed of a Cat Witcher who would encourage him to do more than ‘grow everything out, and shave it off every couple of months’. It had become a habit by then to just, not worry about it. It was either a full beard or nothing, and as far as he was concerned it was fine.</p><p>Aiden disagreed.</p><p>Aiden disagreed about a lot of Lambert's habits, like the fact that he didn’t wash his socks more than once a month and kept his potion oils next to his cooking oils even though he knew which was <em>just fine, thank you</em>. But Lambert relented on this one thing for two reasons. Firstly, that Aiden actually cared about him beyond the coin they coud make and the quite frankly fantastic sex they had every other night. And Secondly, his beard had gotten long to the point that it was starting to itch, so he might as well do something about it right?</p><p>So he agreed to let his Crazy cat shave him. Not completely, Aiden assured, he’d seen Lambert’s baby face now and agreed he looked better with something on his face, just a trim really. Aiden took all the care he did with anything the Cat deemed important, making sure they were somewhere quiet and away from people with no fear of being disturbed while he worked, so he could focus completely on the Wolf before him.</p><p>Lambert should have been more on edge with another witcher taking a straight razor anywhere near his throat. He got jumpy enough when he let a proper barber do it on rare ocassion. But Aiden's touch was feather light and soft, and he spoke quietly the entire time, speaking gentle words of nonsense and praise, talking about how nice it was to take care of him, and how nice it must have felt to be taken care of in return.</p><p>And it did, feel nice that is. It looked damn good too, when Aiden finished wiping away the last of the foam and let him see his reflection in the tiny mirror he carried around in his own kit. Neat yet scruffy somehow, short but wild looking, shadowing his jaw and coming to just meet the end on the longest scar from that nekker.</p><p>It was a bit like looking at his own face for the first time, an <em>oh, I know that person</em> moment but instead of someone he had met a decade ago it was himself. And for what felt like the first time in a very long time, he liked what he saw, with Aiden smiling over his shoulder at him in that knowing, hungry way. He leaned back until his head thumped against Aiden’s stomach and he let out a little contented sigh through his nose.</p><p>Aiden leaned to snatch a kiss, which turned into two and then three and many many more that, cause Aiden’s was a face he would much rather look at, even if his own finally felt like it fit again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please for the love of god go fallow and/or subscribe to @rawrkinjd they are wonderful and their stories are compelling and beautiful. They bring me endless joy and they deserve all the best for everything they do in this fandom.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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